Tuesday, September 28, 2010

disconnected

1) Go to a coffee shop that offers free wifi and log into upc.ie to set up a new service.
2) Agree to pay an extra 7 EUR per month to avoid paying for cable television. The TV and broadband come in a bundle but you are penalized for not owning a "telly". Still, it's better than the alternative of paying 150 EUR tax annually for having one.
3) Field roughly five thousand calls from UPC claiming they will show up on certain dates, just to have them cancel because they cannot find your building.
4) Convince them your building does exist and is quite easy to find.
5) Make new appointment.
6) Five thousand and one calls to confirm the appointment.
7) Stay home all afternoon waiting on the UPC service guy.
8) Guy arrives only to find the UPC box in the apartment doesn't work. He leaves, taking all the equipment with him. Fortunately, he promises that UPC will contact you within two days to set up new appointment with another, more specialized, service man.
9) Wait three days.
10) Call UPC and demand that they send somebody to set up the internet. Stay on phone for over an hour while man checks the broadband box remotely. Get told by the UPC man on the phone that the UPC box doesn't work. Explain why you didn't have the first service man leave his equipment at your house (!) because you should have known it was necessary. Have the man on the phone laugh at you for not owning a telly. Next, realize the last appointment was completely useless and it could have been done over the phone. Set up new appointment for three days from now.

I haven't figured out the final steps just yet. UPC says the guy is showing up on Thursday between 9am and 1pm. I guess I'll complete the steps then. Running time since first contact with UPC: 2 weeks, 6 days.